Transcript Oral Storytelling Elements Still Clear In The Thousand Nights and

Oral Storytelling Elements Still
Clear In The Thousand Nights
and One Night
By Me.
Warning: Mainly Concerned With
Sex and Genies
What is the Nights?
Genies
History of the Nights
Don´t Read The Last of the Nights.
It´s Got Oral Storytelling Traces in
it, Homies.
It´s also got Genies.
The Tale of King Shahryar and of
His Brother, King Shazaman
The Blessing
• AS ALLAH WILLS!
• IN THE NAME OF ALLAH,
• THE MERCIFUL, THE COMPASSIONATE!
• Praise be to Allah, master of the Universe! And prayer and peace
upon the Prince of Messengers, Muhammad, our lord paramount!
And upon all his people prayer and peace for ever until the
judgement day!
• And afterwards! May the legends of the men of old be lessons to the
people of our time, so that a man may see those things which befell
others beside himself: then he will honour and consider carefully the
words and adventures of past peoples, and will reprove himself.
• Also glory be to him who preserved the tales of the first dwellers to
be a guide for the purpose of the last!
• Now it is from among these lessons that the stories called The
Thousand Nights and One Night are taken; together with all that
there is in them of wonder and instruction.
Ong´s Points
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Oral cultures and oral storytellers are:
i. Additive rather than subordinative
ii. Aggregative rather than analytic
iii. Redundant or ‘copious’
iv. Conservative or traditionalist
v. Close to the human lifeworld
vi. Agonistically toned
vii. Empathetic and participatory rather than
objectively distanced
viii. Homeostatic
ix. Situational rather than abstract
ALSO:
• Oral memory works
well with
´heavy´characters
• Bizarre figures and
formulary number
groupings are
memory aids for
storytellers
And Dudes:
• Poetry and proverbs
are useful for
remembering and
handing down
knowledge
So let´s see if any of these oral
storytelling qualities are in the
Nights!!!
• And more specifically
in The Tale of King
Shahryar and of His
Brother, King
Shazaman
Shahryar and Shazaman
• ´Dude, I´m so close to
the human lifeworld
right now.´
• ´Man, I´m hella
Aggregative rather
than analytic.´
Infidelity!!!!
Jinni
• Or ´Genius´
Jinni Boning.
´How many times did you
cheat on me?´
´Only 570 times! I had to!
That number is a
formulary memory aid!´
´Isn´t ´one´ easier to
remember than 570?´
´Uh... Look! A blimp!´
•
‘When Shahryar entered his
palace, he caused his wife’s head
to be cut off at the neck, and in the
same way the heads of the slaves,
both men and women. Then he
ordered the wazir to bring him
every night a young and virgin girl,
whom he ravished and, when the
night had passed, caused to be
slain. This he did for three long
years; so that the people were all
one cry of grief, one tumult of
horror. They fled away with such
daughters as remained to them;
and in all the city there remained
not one girl who retained the state
to serve for this assault.´
Shahrazad and Dunyazad
A New Story
• The Fable of the Ass, the Bull and the
Husbandman
Shahrazad and Shahryar
1139 Deaths (all murders)
• 2 queens, forty
slaves, 2 black lovers
and 1095 deflowered
virgins.
1096 Virgins Ravished (1095 of
them killed)
• Three years´ worth of
Virgins, plus
Shahzarad
1141 Sex Acts
• 1096 Virgins deflowered,
twenty slaves sleeping
with twenty slaves, two
queens sleeping with two
black slaves and two
kings sleeping with one
Jinni´s prisoner. This
doesn´t include the 570
times the Jinni´s prisoner
stepped out on the Jinni
before the kings came
along.
13 Allahs
• Allah is mentioned by
various characters 13
times. Not including
the blessing at the
start.
One Jinni
Consider for homework:
Is one enough?
One Story-Within-A-Story
• The Fable of the Ass,
the Bull and the
Husbandman is
within The Tale of
King Shahryar and
of His Brother, King
Shazaman, which
itself has 1001
nights´worth of stories
within it.
The Thousand Nights and One
Night:
•It´s Quite A
Book.
A brief mention of propaganda.
And Discourse.
So do you think there are traces of
oral storytelling in these
adventures?
Correction: Do you think there are
traces of oral storytelling in these
sexy adventures?
Because there are. And that´s it.
Storytime?
Turkish Bath at My Place, 9
O´Clock
• Bring a sponge, a
towel and some kind
of scented soaps.
• BYOE*
• 1095 high-breasted
virgins are optional,
but they are always
certainly welcome.
•
*BYOE: Bring Your Own Eunuch